NM U.S. Reps. Vasquez, Leger Fernández introduce New World screwworm legislation — Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
Following last week’s discovery of New Mexico’s first New World screwworm case, members of the state’s congressional delegation on Thursday announced legislation intended to curtail the spread of the parasitic fly.
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat who represents the state’s southern 2nd Congressional District, announced the Protecting America’s Herds Act during an Albuquerque news conference with co-sponsor and fellow Democrat U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the 3rd Congressional District, surrounded by a bevy of agricultural, livestock and wildlife officials.
New Mexico agriculture officials on June 8 reported the state’s first case of New World screwworm, detected in a Lea County dog, just days after the first U.S. incursion of the devastating parasitic fly in a south Texas calf. State livestock officials the following day issued an emergency declaration allowing for additional state and federal assistance. Federal officials declared the fly eradicated from the U.S. for the past 60 years, and its return poses a threat to wildlife, livestock, pets and people.
Both Vasquez and Leger Fernández criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its response to the screwworm situation, which they characterized as lackluster. The pest, named for the maggot’s behavior of eating live tissue, advanced rapidly through Mexico after being mainly contained in Central America for several decades.
“We are very concerned about the spread of the screwworm in the United States,” Leger Fernández said, “but we were first concerned back when we heard that it was spreading northward, and as we know, we started hearing that in 2024 especially.”
“Sadly,” she said, the federal government “did not move with the urgency that we think this requires.”
Leger Fernández specifically referenced the delayed construction of a sterile-fly production facility in Texas. Sterile flies, officials say, constitute the best response to the New World screwworm “by disrupting their ability to reproduce.”
Vasquez led a letter from the delegation in April asking USDA officials to report on the status of the facility. The USDA on Tuesday announced funding for “40 breakthrough projects to bolster the nation’s defenses against New World screwworm.” According to its screwworm dashboard, the U.S. now has 12 cases.
Vasquez’s legislation, as described, would create a USDA grant program to fund cooperative extension services so they could train people on New World screwworm identification, treatment and prevention; allow extension agents to act as livestock inspectors; empower them to train and hire more livestock inspectors; increase coordination between USDA and other interested parties, such as veterinarians and tribal agriculture officials; and prioritize funding for states and tribal communities at heightened risk of New World screwworm.
In a statement, Vasquez noted that New World screwworm is not a “distant problem.” Rather, “It’s here, right in our backyard. That’s why I’m raising the alarm in Congress and leading a bipartisan effort to make sure lawmakers understand this isn’t just a New Mexico or Southwest issue — it’s a national threat to our food supply, our ranchers, and American families — and we need to respond now.”
At the news conference on Thursday, numerous agriculture, livestock and wildlife officials expressed their support for the bipartisan legislation, which has been endorsed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, New Mexico State University, the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, the Public Lands Council and Rocky Mountain Farmers Union.
State veterinarian Samantha Holeck, in her remarks, said she wanted to emphasize that New World screwworm “is not a food safety issue,” nor is it an infectious disease. In addition, “it’s treatable if it’s caught early.” She also reinforced Vasquez’s comments that New World screwworm is not a political issue.
“This is a nationwide issue that we all need to address,” she said, “because it affects all warm-blooded animals, including humans.”
Holeck also referenced New Mexico’s previous encounter with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza’s impact on the state’s dairy cattle.
That situation “really strengthened the interagency cooperation that happens here in New Mexico, and also with our federal partners at the USDA level, and I think that those are the really important relationships to help get us through what’s ahead,” she said. “We will get through this. We’ve been through this before.”
Holeck also noted that the Lea County dog with New Mexico’s first case of New World screwworm has recovered.
“He is healed, and he will be going home today,” she said.
Danielle Prokop contributed to this report.
New Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire documentary examines centuries-old wounds — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A new documentary — “burn, scar” — chronicles the humans at the center of New Mexico’s biggest-ever wildfire, from the acequia parciantes seeking federal help to restore their historic irrigation ditches to the federal Forest Service officials defending the use of prescribed burns in the face of sharp community backlash.
Taos-based director Hillary Bachelder said a chance encounter before the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire ultimately inspired the four-year long project, in which she reveals the long strands of history that ultimately collided on a windy April day in 2022 in Las Dispensas, New Mexico, when a group of federal Hotshot firefighters ignited a prescribed burn that ultimately escaped containment.
Both the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires resulted from botched federal prescribed burns. The resulting wildfires merged and went on to destroy hundreds of homes and more than 500 square miles of land, mostly in San Miguel and Mora counties. The wildfire upended a way of life among ranchers and farmers, many of whom trace their roots to Spanish land grants that see the U.S. Forest Service’s takeover of their lands as the United States’ “original sin,” Bachelder said.
The 90-minute documentary follows acequia stewards as they try and fail to receive Federal Emergency Management Agency compensation, as well as Forest Service officials who grapple with the wildfire’s aftermath and defend the use of prescribed fires as vital in protecting forests from climate change. The film also delves deep into the tension between land grants and the Forest Service, featuring interviews with Rio Arriba County Commissioner Moises Morales, who was involved in the 1967 Tierra Amarilla Courthouse Raid.
Bachelder’s film debuted in late May at the Mountainfest Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado. She told Source NM that she hopes the documentary will make its New Mexico debut at the Santa Fe International Film Festival in October. From there, she expects to host additional local screenings, particularly for wildfire victims still feeling the effects of the wildfire more than four years later.
Source NM spoke to Bachelder about what inspired the film and what she learned making it. Her responses below have been edited for clarity and concision.
When did you first hear about the fire?
I have kind of a weird intro into it, in that I was taking a class in early 2022 through the Santa Fe Watershed Association, called Climate Masters, and it was 12 weeks or something of all of these different focus areas around how the climate crisis is impacting New Mexico. As someone new to the state, I was just like, ‘Oh, this sounds fascinating,’ and in early April of that year I was on a tour of the Santa Fe watershed with Dennis [Carrill], who ends up being in the film from the Santa Fe National Forest, showing like a treatment area that they had just done, and talking about prescribed burns. I had a lot of questions for him, because I didn’t grow up with any relationship to fire or connection to it. I just asked him a bunch of questions, and then that was maybe the same week that the Las Dispensas prescribed burn got out of control, and so basically, as soon as it happened, my interest was really piqued.
What was your prior filmmaking background?
I did most of my filmmaking prior to this in the Midwest. So I worked for a company in Chicago called Kartemquin Films, and they made Hoop Dreams in the 90s. They’ve just been making these thoughtful, social issue, character-centered kind of documentaries for going on 60 years now, so I kind of learned everything I know from those guys back in Chicago. And I made one other feature film before this that was following three women running for local office back in 2020. So I’ve been working in kind of character-centered, verite, issue films for a while.
When you started filming, did you know that this was going to be that kind of film?
When I first was thinking about a story, because I just had this interaction and beginning of a relationship with Dennis and the Santa Fe [National Forest], I was thinking about approaching it almost entirely from the Forest Service perspective. I started reaching out to their team to try and get access and permissions, and that’s something that just ended up taking months and months on both the Carson and the Santa Fe National Forest. It was sort of in the meantime that (a story by journalist Alicia Inez Guzmán about existing tensions published) and I started understanding the depth of the dynamic and the history here between communities and the Forest Service and the federal government. Then it became a lot more apparent how important that perspective was going to be.
How did you balance the views of community groups who are devastated by these burns and calling for them to be shut down with what you were hearing from the Forest Service at the time?
I think that’s been something we’ve navigated throughout production and the edit, and now even with the release of the film, because I have my own opinions and understandings around the use of prescribed fire. I feel comfortable saying that the science generally supports the need for healthy fire, depending on the landscape, in these types of forests, but the sort of personal experiences of people here who have lived through it are so incredibly valid, and the reactions the communities are still having around prescribed fire is really understandable. And I wanted to approach all of those sides with empathy and understanding and without judgment.
When did you spot a connection between the reaction among communities in the Santa Fe National Forest and the Tierra Amarilla raid?
I don’t think you can present Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon in a vacuum in northern New Mexico. There’s this overwhelming sentiment that much of the land that has turned into national forest was part of the land grants initially and were taken from the local families here. That is fundamentally the landscape that the Forest Service walks into with a drip torch in April of 2022. When I was wrestling with the story that I wanted to tell after the fire, which is really when the story mostly takes place, it’s this question of, ‘How does the Forest Service rebuild trust? How do you move forward from something like that?’ You can’t start the clock in northern New Mexico in April of 2022. There’s too much baggage and legacy and history that happens before that point in understanding the complex dynamics and the root of a lot of that mistrust.
Why did you feel it was so important to feature the Forest Service officials dealing with that mistrust, and did doing so provide you a better understanding of what really went wrong that day in Las Dispensas?
Unfortunately, not really to the last part. Because of ongoing litigation, no one was really able to give me more details about that. But I think, spending the years that I have shadowing some of those folks on prescribed burns gave me a much deeper understanding and respect for the work they do. It’s maybe not the most popular opinion still in the Las Vegas area to say that the Forest Service employees are people, too, but of course they are. Many of them are locals who were involved in the burns and, once they escaped, in fighting the fire. The story that I wanted to tell was one of feeling and understanding, and I think you can only get that with real transparency and access on all sides, and asking for a little bit of vulnerability.
Is it a spoiler to ask about that last scene? Why did you choose that for the ending and what do you hope people will take away from it.
I do love talking about it, and it is kind of a spoiler, but we can talk about it. In the last scene, we see Ernie [Lovato] who’s had his property devastated by the fire, kind of up on the edge of the forest with his young son. And there his son is sort of discovering wheat that has come up from some of the aerial reseeding efforts that were done post-fire, and Ernie’s explaining that this particular grass has barbs that can injure his cows’ mouths. He’s a rancher. And his son just starts picking up all of the seeds off the ground and Ernie’s kind of saying, like, ‘well, you’re never going to pick those up.’ There’s millions and millions and millions of seeds that have been dropped across the burn scar. But his son keeps doing it, and then after a minute, Ernie gets down on the ground and starts picking them up with him, and it’s probably my favorite scene.
Some people do experience hopelessness when they see that, but I think a lot of other folks actually respond in the way that I do to the scene, which is finding it incredibly powerful. It’s a little bit of a visual metaphor for how I think a lot of us experience the climate crisis, and [are] trying to manage our public lands. It’s just a Sisyphean feat. And each of us is trying to do sort of the best we can.
Where I find the most hope around the film and the story — like it’s a tough story, a tough watch — but I find it so hopeful that people aren’t walking away, and everyone in the film is so deeply passionate about the land and doing right by the land. And so even though there’s so much disagreement around how to approach that, I personally would rather land in a conflict where everyone is passionate, everyone cares deeply, rather than everyone is apathetic, and no one’s interested in sticking it out to do the work that needs to be done.
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver suspends Dem Lt. Gov. campaign, citing health
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
After winning the Democratic nomination to be New Mexico’s next lieutenant governor in a landslide primary election on June 2, incumbent Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on Thursday announced she was dropping out of the race.
“This has been an incredibly difficult decision, but a necessary one,” she wrote on Facebook. “Recent changes to my health have caused my family and I to reflect on my commitments at home and to the people of our state — both of which I take extraordinarily seriously. Suspending my campaign will allow me to focus on my family while ensuring I can continue to fulfill my duties as secretary of state.”
In her social media statement, Toulouse Oliver thanked the New Mexicans who cast ballots in the June 2 primary election.
Toulouse Oliver first won election to be secretary of state in 2016. In the ensuing decade, she has often clashed with President Donald Trump, whose Department of Justice demanded she turn over the state’s voter list.
She also decried the Trump administration’s efforts last year to require voters to show proof of citizenship.
Toulouse Oliver did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment.
In a statement, Democratic Party of New Mexico Communications Director Daniel Garcia said the party’s State Central Committee will select a replacement.
“The timeline for that process is being finalized and we will share more details as soon as they are available,” Garcia wrote. “New Mexicans should know that this is a secure, well-established process that has been used successfully for many years, including to fill the CD-1 vacancy in 2021 and nominees for HD-53 and SD-28 in 2024.”
State Sen. Harold Pope (D-Albuquerque), who ran against Toulouse Oliver in the June primary, told Source NM he is thinking of her and her family and wishes them well.
“I want to fill that position if she, indeed, is going to suspend her campaign,” he said. “The results didn’t happen the way I wanted them to in the primary…but with my experience in the Senate and what I stand for, I think I would be a great addition to the ticket.”
Former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who secured the Democratic nomination in the governor’s race and would have shared a ticket with Toulouse Oliver, in a statement wished her well.
“It is a courageous decision to run for office and it’s a decision all New Mexicans understand when you must step back to prioritize your family and health,” Haaland wrote. “Thank you to Maggie for your exceptional, longstanding work for New Mexico, your friendship and your courage.”
In a social media post following Toulouse Oliver’s announcement, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, whose second and final term ends this year, wrote that Toulouse Oliver “has served New Mexicans with great distinction as Secretary of State, and she would have made an excellent lieutenant governor. Maggie is a good friend and I know her decision to suspend her campaign today did not come easy. I respect that Maggie has chosen to prioritize her health and her family and I wish her all the best.”
Military jamming disrupted a medical plane's GPS system before it crashed last month in New Mexico
—Associated Press
The GPS system on a small medical plane that crashed into a mountainside last month in New Mexico malfunctioned because the military was jamming that signal throughout the area at the time although pilots had been warned to expect that, according to federal investigators.
Four people died in the pre-dawn crash on May 14 that sparked a wildfire that burned for weeks in the rugged Capitan Mountains around Ruidoso where the plane was trying to land that night.
The National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report on the crash Wednesday that described the GPS problems the pilots encountered, but investigators won't identify the cause of the crash until they finish their final report sometime next year.
Experts say the pilots should have been able to land safely by relying on ground-based navigation systems or flying visually, but relying on GPS is popular because it is so precise.
“The loss of GPS should not result in the loss of an airplane, so there’s got to be more to it than that,” said retired airline pilot John Cox, who is now CEO of Safety Operating Systems.
The NTSB said that after the pilots of the plane operated by Trans Aero MedEvac started having problems, the air traffic controller gave them headings to follow into the airport so they could get lined up for an approach relying on the airport's instrument landing system. Three other planes in the area also reported GPS problems around the same time.
The warning the Federal Aviation Administration sent out to pilots beforehand made reference to the Army's White Sands Missile Range, which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Ruidoso. The Army did not immediately respond Thursday to questions from The Associated Press.
At one point, the controller even contacted the military and got it to shut down the jammers. But then shortly before the crash, the pilots told controllers they had the airport in sight and planned to land visually, so controllers gave the military the OK to resume jamming.
“If you can see the runway, you can see the mountain. Why would you fly into it?” Cox asked, because even with the new details in this preliminary report, there are still many unanswered questions about the crash.
Ruidoso, a mountain town with a year-round population of less than 8,000, sits at the base of south-central New Mexico’s Sierra Blanca range. The surrounding area, which includes Lincoln National Forest, is heavily forested and rural. The wildfire that started after the crash burned 49.8 square miles (128.9 square kilometers). Forest Service officials said the fire was 100% contained on June 12, but it has not been declared totally out. No structures were damaged in the fire.
The FAA published a Notice to Airmen ahead of time warning any pilots flying into the area that the military would be jamming GPS signals, so aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said the medevac pilots should have been prepared to rely on other navigation systems.
But Arroyo said pilots often rely on GPS because it can safely guide them even in challenging territory where there is a narrow margin for error while navigating around obstacles.
“GPS can bring you in precisely with a margin of safety that’s required and bring you down for landing. But if you don’t have GPS, you can’t make that approach within those margins and you may drift outside using conventional navigation,” said Arroyo, who was a longtime pilot for United Airlines.
But when the pilots decided to attempt a visual approach they were taking responsibility to avoid any obstacles on their way into the airport.
The NTSB said the airplane descended to 9,400 feet (2,865 meters) as it approached the airport before climbing several hundred feet. But then the plane struck a mountainside at 9,950 feet (3,000 meters). The point of impact was about 230 feet (70 meters) below the Capitan Mountains Summit Radio Facility.
Trans Aero MedEvac has operated in southeastern New Mexico and west Texas since 1966. The victims who died in the crash were identified as pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara with the company Generation Jets and flight nurses Jamie Novick and Sarah Clark with Trans Aero MedEvac. The plane was en route from Roswell Air Center to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport when it crashed.